For the Both of Us
by kysis-the-bard
Summary: Drabble about Cloud and Zack, pre-AC, insinuations of yaoi. Please R&R?


**Disclaimer:** I do not own FF7, AC, or CC, or the characters. Those are all Square Enix. I just wrote this.

**Warning:** insinuations of yaoi, dark themes, and Cloud being (the) emo (that he is). If you do not like how I portray Cloud, yaoi, ZackxCloud, or anything of that sort, this is not the drabble for you, so please click back now. Thanks!

**Author's Note:** first off, I would like to say that I do not like Cloud. I hated him in CCFF7, and in FF7. In AC, I thought he was ok, but still… no. I despise almost every pairing to do with Cloud, and most of all refuse to even acknowledge that people actually write SephirothxCloud. Just no. So, this is very different for me. This is pre-Advent Children. This is a oneshot. I've never written as Cloud before, and I have only ever briefly mentioned Zack before in a fic. Sorry if you don't like them, or this. It's not for everyone.

**FOR THE BOTH OF US**

It was a SOLDIER helmet. He never wore it, not once. With a deep breath, Cloud ran his black gloved fingers over the ridge of the metal helmet. It was cool to the touch. It spoke of the fact that it had never been worn. Cloud closed his eyes, hand falling clear of the thing, perfectly preserved and tended for. That was what he did. He tended to this place, these things. Every so often there would be a break, however brief, when he would have to deliver something.

Across the room, a light was blinking on the front of his phone. There were missed calls, messages. People were always trying to get a hold of him. How often did it work? Not often enough, Tifa would say, but she was all the way in Edge, with bigger problems to deal with, like the children. Two of them, both orphans, both loved; Cloud vaguely remembered what it was like to be loved.

With a sigh, Cloud moved away from the old wooden pew with the helmet on it, walking down the aisle. Flowers continued to grow there. It was like they were waiting for Aeris to return, each white and yellow one standing still in time. Their scent was overpowering at times. Cloud knew where he recognized it from.

There were times when Zack would smell like those flowers.

He had never asked Zack about the girl he sometimes went to see. In the same regards, he had never asked Aeris about the SOLDIER she used to see. It should have made sense. The dots should have connected. Aeris had been waiting for Zack to return for five years with no such luck, and for five years, Cloud had been wandering in a haze of wanted for the impossible.

Fate seemed too harsh a word for it.

Pausing, Cloud knelt, black leather fingertips touching the wooden planks of the floor. There was sadness in that spot. It was tangible, so strong the memory. Cloud sat down. At one point, Zack had mentioned something about it. The memories were still barely there, for which Cloud always felt guilty. Zack deserved better than to be forgotten. His sacrifice… even thinking about it, those moments after waking from his coma, made his heart clench, his stomach churn, hot tears prickling his eyes.

The spot he sat now was where Zack had sat and wept the loss of Angeal.

Cloud had to stand, had to force himself to.

"_Use promotes wear, tear and rust."_

Wherever Zack was, he must have hated Cloud. He was sure of it. His blue eyes, just barely glowing, passed over the ground. Leaving himself too much time to think was never a good thing, though it served as a reminder.

"I have to live both of our lives now…" Cloud turned, walking swiftly, purposefully, down the center aisle of the church. It was abandoned, but only as run down as it had been the first time Cloud fell through the roof of it. That day had forever changed his life. Zack had done the same thing once. It made a lump form in Cloud's throat, which he hastily tried to swallow back, quickening his pace.

"Your honor…." Cloud kept walking, black boots making quiet thuds along his way. "Your dreams…" He moved fluidly onto his bike, firing it up. The engine was loud, so loud it swallowed his quiet voice. "They are mine now."

The bike roared on, out of the ruins, through the parched land, torn asunder by mako reactors and a lack of care. ShinRa was just a memory now.

And Zack had to be more than one.

He stopped on the cliff, getting off.

Where was it?

Blue eyes widened, a moment his heart stood still, frantic. No… it couldn't… Cloud walked swiftly away from his bike, see it lying on the ground like a discarded piece of refuse. That wasn't what it was. It was honor. It was dreams.

Cloud knelt, lifting the buster sword, putting it back into place. It was a long overdue gravestone, now rusted and worn. Cloud had used it, when he did not remember Zack ever actually doing so. And now, it was just a monument to the passing of a hero. Cloud didn't feel like a living legacy.

But he had to be. For Zack. He would be.

"For the both of us…" Cloud let his hand slip from the faded hilt of the Buster Sword, lip trembling.


End file.
